Nortel Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions unveiled the latest enhancements of its state-of-the art Communication Server 2000 carrier IP softswitch at the Supercomm 2009 tradeshow. This success is the result of proven and leading-edge VoIP solutions: Business voice and multimedia solution, Consumer voice and multimedia solution, Transit and Multimedia Interconnect solution, and the Class 5 solution. These solutions have been successfully deployed across the globe to satisfy the needs of both the small and the large Service Providers deployments. The solutions are media agnostic, are fully featured with full PSTN transparency, can be deployed in either fully SIP or hybrid environments, are bundled with key capabilities to meet all VoIP networking and management requirements, and are fully tested out to the end points.

Nortel is introducing a new hardware platform, called the CS 2000a, which boosts service providers' capacity in a smaller footprint, provides up to a 70 percent reduction in footprint and a 50 percent power savings compared to currently available platform options. Nortel's CS 2000a enables service providers to handle peak call periods more efficiently because it supports call capacity in excess of 5 million Busy Hour Call Attempts.

CS 2000a leverages Nortel's widely deployed second generation carrier grade ATCA-based hardware platform coupled with its industry-leading middleware platform -the Versatile Service Engine. Nortel's VSE platform is application agnostic and delivers a number of differentiators over and above ATCA platforms, such as easy migration of applications onto the platform while at the same time leveraging tight integration and coherent system management to deliver an industry leading proven six 9's of reliability.

Nortel is also introducing the next software release, CVM 14 of the CS 2000, which will unleash a powerful suite of advanced SIP applications that unify the communications experience for subscribers. These new SIP applications increase the service provider's competitive advantage by allowing subscribers to communicate and collaborate with greater ease, flexibility and efficiency.

Highlights of the new CS 2000 hardware and software enhancements include:

• CS 2000a, based on Nortel's carrier grade open-standards AdvancedTCATM technology, helps service providers deal with OPEX challenges of today by providing call capacities in excess of 5 million BHCA, up to a 70 percent reduction in floorspace, and reduced services costs. Additional capacity can be added simply by enabling additional software RTU's or through the addition of blade pairs within the ATCA shelf which helps eliminate the need for costly central office infrastructure upgrades. CS 2000a also allows service providers to perform integrated remote patching and upgrades across the platform and it's applications reduce costly operational expenses. The greater degree of hardware integration reduces the amount of cabling and on-site installation effort and cuts deployment timelines up to six weeks.
• CVM release 14 software features allowing service providers to deliver a wide variety of new SIP business applications including a Hosted Call Center feature for SIP terminals/clients; SIP mobile UC clients for easier end-user migration to SIP; extension of multimedia capabilities to subscribers behind SIP business trunks; support of DECT SIP terminals for residential services; remote provisioning of SIP terminals for faster deployments; and other OAM features to help carriers reduce costs. Nortel's CS 2000 CVM release 14 software will be available on Nortel's CS 2000a and previously deployed CS2000 hardware platforms.

Nortel's latest CS 2000 hardware and software enhancements are expected to be available in the second quarter of 2010. They will be demonstrated at Nortel's Supercomm booth (#2120) in Chicago this week.